Dream Chasers (28 page)

“Seen him recently?”

“Well, I don't watch every minute of the day, you know.”

Green suspected he did, especially when the half naked girls were on display, but he smiled reassuringly. “Of course not. Just curious if you saw him.”

“Well, I did see him this weekend sometime. Can't remember—Friday or Saturday? They had a fight.”

“What about?”

“I don't...”

“I know, you don't listen in. But if you heard anything... It might be useful.”

“Yeah. The O'Shaughnessy kid came storming out of the house and McIntyre says ‘I'm not going to let you ruin your life', and the kid yells back ‘you already have'. Then he got in his Jeep and took off.”

At that moment Green's cell phone rang, giving him little time to absorb the possible meaning of that outburst. He glanced at the call display with annoyance, but saw that it was Sullivan. He strolled casually over to his car to be out of earshot of the neighbour, who had already exhibited a more than healthy curiosity about other people's business.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! The idiots lost him!”

Green took a moment to figure out what he was talking about. “What do you mean—lost him?”

“I mean, the surveillance guys fell asleep, went off for a piss—who the fuck knows?—and Riley drove out from under their noses.”

Sullivan sounded taut with anger, and Green could almost picture the dusky red creeping up his neck. Green rolled his eyes. Devine would have a field day with this. Not only had the department dished out hundreds of her precious overtime dollars to keep these guys on the job, but they had bungled it. “When?”

“Who knows? Their best guess? Sometime around five o'clock this morning. He must have seen our surveillance team and realized we were on to him.”

Green heard the heaviness in Sullivan's voice. “It looks pretty bad for him, Brian.”

“I know. I've already put out an
APB
, so now the kid's name is going to be broadcast all over the city. Fucking idiots!”

I wouldn't want to be the surveillance team that screwed that up, Green thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the neighbour standing by his car, keys in hand, straining to hear.

“I've set up a briefing in half an hour,” Sullivan was saying. “We need to get some teams tracking Riley, and we need to see what Ident and MacPhail have managed to find out about the Jane Doe.” A jet roared overhead, blocking out all sound for almost thirty seconds. “Where the hell are you?”

“At Vic McIntyre's house. There's another twist to the story.” Green filled him in on Riley's phone call to McIntyre. “The kid barely seems to take a shit without checking with McIntyre, so I'm betting he panicked and called him for advice that night. Maybe McIntyre even helped him cover it up.”

Sullivan was silent a moment. “Well, I wouldn't put it past the guy. You'd think he wouldn't jeopardize his career and reputation with something so stupid, but we've both seen smarter men make even dumber choices.”

Next door, Eugene Boulder gave up trying to eavesdrop and drove away in his car. Green glanced thoughtfully at McIntyre's deserted house. Boulder had said McIntyre had roared off at top speed at eight thirty this morning. He had been in such a hurry that he had left the inside door to his garage ajar. What was the big rush? Could it be that Riley had asked him for help again? Maybe even to hide him?

“Are you coming down to the briefing?” Sullivan asked.

“You go ahead,” Green said. “I just have a small thing to check into.”

After he hung up, he got out and glanced up and down the street, studying the front yards and façades of the neighbouring houses. No one was around, no one paying him the slightest heed. He strolled back up to McIntyre's house and ducked out of sight down the side path. At the side door, he hesitated. He had no authorization to do this, no possible justification or defence. Worse, his action could jeopardize future investigation of McIntyre if anyone found out about it. But a dangerous killer was on the loose, possibly two of them working in concert, and if there were any clues in the house as to their whereabouts, what was the harm in a little peek?

I'll be in and out in less than five minutes, he promised himself, slipping on latex gloves. No point in leaving calling cards. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the knob and ducked inside. The garage echoed emptily. He crossed the concrete in long, rapid strides and entered the house. At the last second, he spotted the alarm panel by the door and felt a quick shot of adrenaline before realizing it had not been turned on.

Another sign of haste? He scoped out the ground floor quickly, but there was no sign of Riley. The decor of the front rooms was lean and masculine. Brushed nickel, smoked glass and burgundy leather. No knickknacks, photos or artwork on the walls, which were starkly painted in reds, chocolates and golds. Highly polished hardwood echoed his footsteps. This was a house out of a designer's set, meant to entertain and to impress. Meant to lure the unsuspecting into believing they were in the company of character and taste.

The family room and kitchen at the back of the house were more lush and sensual. Green's eyes widened at the sight of the cavernous kitchen with its bank of windows overlooking the pool. Granite counters, cherrywood cabinets, Italian tile, stainless steel European appliances. Green had nearly wiped out his bank account on his modest renovations to their own old house, so he could make a fair guess at the cost of this extravagance. On the counter sat an uneaten omelette and a half empty cup of coffee, and spread out beside them was the morning's edition of the
Ottawa Sun
. McIntyre had not even progressed beyond the first page, where Frank Corelli's story about the Bruce Pit death screamed out its outrageous headline.

Conscious of the time, Green moved quickly up the stairs as he registered the implications. McIntyre had begun his breakfast preparations without haste or apparent concern but, much like Riley, he'd been sent into action by the sight of that headline.

Green's speculations were brought to a crashing halt when he reached the door of the first bedroom. A massive circular bed commanded central stage, and mirrored tiles on the ceiling reflected its glossy black sheets. A huge flat screen
TV
occupied one wall, but the remaining walls were papered in life-sized, pornographic photos of women. Some nude, some dressed only in flimsy lingerie, garters or thongs. None looked over sixteen.

“Holy fuck!” The words were out before he even remembered the need for stealth. He jerked open the door to the closet. Inside was a hidden video camera aimed through a peephole towards the bed. Behind it were shelves upon shelves of boxes. He bent to examine a box sitting open on the closet floor. On close inspection it proved to be packed with
DVD
s, videotapes and photographs, all cryptically labelled in an alphanumeric code. Curious, Green picked up the
TV
remote that sat on a shelf in the closet and aimed it at the
TV
. The screen filled with an overhead shot of the circular bed, this time covered in hot pink sheets. Two naked figures writhed on the bed, and it took Green a moment to recognize McIntyre himself, fondling the tanned, nubile body of a girl probably younger than Hannah. Bottles of wine cluttered the bedside table, and soft, sensual jazz blended with the murmuring from the bed.

Green studied the mirror ceiling tiles over the bed, trying to detect the camera behind them, but it was completely hidden from view. The bastard can videotape whatever he wants, Green thought, without the girls having a clue. He ejected the disk and selected another at random from the box. This one was a shot of the leather sofa downstairs, which sagged beneath the weight of two girls crawling all over a foolishly grinning teenage boy. The girls were wearing nothing but a Senators flag. The boy was stark naked.

Green flicked the
TV
off in disgust. His thoughts flashed involuntarily to Hannah and Crystal, who thought they understood the world of sex and power. How old were those kids on the sofa? Did they know they were being filmed? Was McIntyre in the room with them, or did he savour the show later in private? Green's mind ticked off all the charges that could be laid against the man, if ever this evidence could be legally seized, but it was small retribution for what he'd done to the kids.

He came back to reality with a start. He'd been in the house far too long. He replaced everything as it had been and hurried down the hall to the next bedroom, wondering what else the man was up to. This one was a huge master bedroom with a balcony overlooking the backyard paradise. It was more tastefully done in dark mahogany furnishings and shiny red and gold striped wallpaper. The king-sized bed had a luxurious red satin duvet and matching sheets. Green sensed this was the man's private abode, his own personal sensual palace. The ensuite bathroom was a massive marble extravagance with two sinks, gold-plated faucets and a Jacuzzi almost large enough for an entire hockey team. A quick search of the cupboards revealed one linen closet full not of towels or sheets but bottles of pills and entire cases of sports drinks. Green picked one up.

“Dr. Rosen's Electro-Boost, the only thirst quencher for the serious athlete” boasted the label. There was no list of ingredients or bar code for commercial sale. He peered at the bottles containing all different sizes and colours of tablets labelled innocuously as Vitamin E, B12, ginseng, garlic. I'd give anything to send all this stuff for analysis, Green thought. I bet I'd find crystal meth, ecstasy, probably all sorts of uppers and downers to relax inhibitions and enhance excitement. Maybe even roofies, so the kids can pleasure him without remembering a thing.

No one opens a candy store for nothing, he thought, and fought back the revulsion that rose in his throat. Reluctantly he replaced the bottles and eased the cupboard shut again. On his way out of the bedroom, he couldn't resist a quick peek in the man's mahogany dresser. He was no longer searching for Riley, but for a fuller view of the man's dark side. Inside the top drawer, instead of the usual array of socks and briefs, he found a jumble of women's lingerie. Panties, bras, camisoles and teddies in black lace, virginal white silk, leather and flimsy chiffon. Green sifted through it curiously. Were these trophies, to remind him of his conquests? The musky scent of sex tickled his nostrils, and he was about to shut the drawer when a fragment of embroidery caught his eye. Part of a name. He pulled the item free and found himself holding a black satin thong with a name hand-embroidered in red across the skimpy triangle of cloth.

For Riley.

A minute later, Green was back in his car, starting it up and driving up the block out of sight. His heart was pounding. The panties were the closest they had come so far to nailing the connection between Riley, McIntyre and Lea's death. Physical evidence, straight from the Hog's Back scene, found in the man's personal possessions. McIntyre had probably removed the panties from the scene in order to erase all evidence that tied Riley to Lea, but he had been unable to resist keeping them for his own sick titillation.

If only Green could use it. But since the search had been entirely illegal, he couldn't even let on he knew the panties and the rest of the erotica existed. At least officially. But off the record, Sullivan had to know what the hell they were dealing with, so they could figure out how it all fit together. He turned the car and headed towards the station, his thoughts scrounging for possible ways to justify a search warrant.

He got less than five blocks before his phone rang. He groped for it, expecting it was Sullivan with news from his briefing. But to his surprise, it was a woman's voice, vaguely familiar but distorted by the urgent whisper.

“He's here! He came to see me!”

“Who is this?”

“Marija Kovacev. He is in—” Green's adrenaline spiked.

“Who is there?”

“The boy who was with Lea that night. He came to explain.” Green gripped the wheel with his free hand, all senses alert.

“Where are you?”

“In my bathroom. I told him I need to use the toilet, but I phone you—”

“Where is he right now?”

“In my living room.” Green flipped on his flashing lights and slammed the accelerator to the floor. He was only ten minutes from her house, maybe less at full lights and siren. But ten minutes was way too long. As his mind raced over his choices, Marija was still talking.

“He says it was an accident, Lea take some marijuana and she get very sick. I tell him to call you, but he says he can't. So I call.”

In a split second, Green had to make a decision. He could ask her to go back and stall Riley until the police arrived, or he could tell her to get away from the house. In the latter case, he risked losing track of his suspect, but in the former, he risked losing Marija herself. He needed to call for back-up, but he had to get her safe first.

“Marija, can you get out the back door without being seen?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then do it. Right now. I'm on my way, and I'll get him.”

“But he is not dangerous! He is crying! He is afraid.”

“Okay, but let's do it my way,” he said as he slewed around the corner from McCarthy Road, tires screaming, and accelerated up Walkley. “Go out the back door.”

He listened to the silence over the phone. “Marija? Trust me. Go.”

Finally over the roar of his engine, he heard the line click dead. Praying that she had obeyed him, he called the Com Centre for backup. When he raced up her street five minutes later, he saw a cruiser just pulling up to the curb. There was no sign of a red Mustang in the drive, but Marija herself was standing on the lawn. She looked pale and wide-eyed, but unharmed. Green felt a rush of relief. She walked over as he leaped out of the car, and lifted her hands in an elegant gesture of defeat.